On my Initiations as a Hedge Witch

Green Shoots of a Revolution ?

Around the time of the New Labour Party Conference last Autumn, when Gordon Brown was “going green”, or so he said, former Director of Friends of the Earth, Charles Secrett, wrote to the Guardian declaring the Chancellor to be distinctly “brown not green” on environmental issues. These sentiments were echoed yesterday in the Financial Times when Terry Hill, the Chairman of Arup, commented on the latest Brown Budget :

“You would have thought that there was a lot of progress towards a more sustainable economy and green issues. But if you go through them all, all of them are relatively modest and don’t look to me as if they will change behaviour”.

Now this convergence of comments from environmentalist and engineer on the issue of sustainability did actually cheer me up a little, transporting me back in time to 1987 for reasons I’ll explain below.

In 1987, Arup’s Mr Hill had recently completed the London Assessment Studies – for which he was project director – on behalf of the Department of (as it was then) Transport. These studies had looked at a number of transport corridors around the capital and made recommendations as to the measures required to improve local and strategic access, having regard to environmental, social and economic considerations. There was a general consensus that the study recommendations were, in the main, rather sensible (yes, really !) and the only major concern of organisations like FoE (for whom I was doing some work at the time) was that, as a consequence, the government/DTp might ignore them (sound familiar ?).

In the event, the DTp, perhaps encouraged by the then Department of the Environment(which also covered most of the remit of the present Department for Communities and Local Government) largely followed the recommendations of the London Assessment Studies. This provided a clear policy context for the Capital’s business community, as well as reassuring local residents that their views and needs had been taken seriously. From my recollection, a good deal of constructive dialogue and collaboration amongst stakeholders followed on from this.

Therefore, I take some consolation in the “green echo” between Charles Secrett’s letter of last year and Terry Hill’s comments on this week’s Budget. The question is whether such views will influence the all-powerful office of a reputedly “Stalinist” Chancellor and would-be Prime Minister. As three highly accomplished buskers from, I think, a St Petersburg Orchestra graced Worcester High Street with their wonderful and uplifting music this morning, I reflected on the possibility that the green shoots of a revolution could be once again approaching.

Putting their Houses in Order

Yesterday, I took the opportunity to have a browse of the newspapers (FT and Guardian)in Worcester City Library, as well as the housing magazine “Roof”, published by Shelter, which campaigns, amongst other things, on the issue of homelessness. 

As already noted (see below), the FT carried a front page article on the “Stalinist ruthlessness” – in the words of a former “Sir Humphrey” – of Chancellor, and would-be Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. The FT also had a separate article on the way the Treasury, under Mr Brown’s leadership, now dictates the policy of other government departments, notably by using “special advisers”, like Kate Barker on housing and planning policy.

Now anyone who has read some of my earlier blogs, like “Politics is Not Strictly Come Dancing” in the “Politics” category of  www.janetmackinnon.blogspot.com  will know that I particularly dislike the New Labour policy of keeping things in the family, even if the one in question is, I am sure, hard working in the extreme. One of the the most obvious cases of this “family policy” comes in the shape of Mr and Mrs Balls (or Ms Yvette Cooper as the latter prefers to be known in her capacity of  “Housing and Planning Minister). Incidentally, Ms Cooper’s husband is Treasury Minister (and former special adviser) Mr Ed Balls (or the Chancellor’s “representative on earth” as he prefers to be known)

Ms Cooper was also in the newspapers yesterday, this time in the Guardian Letters pages where she was complaining about organisations like the Campaign to Protect Rural England who, in opposing some of the government’s housing plans were also, she maintained, exploiting an opportunity to recruit new supporters and thereby raise funds. Excuse me, but isn’t this a bit rich coming from a government which is the subject of unprecedented scrutiny as to how its own funds are raised ! Not only that, the Treasury is at this very moment endeavouring to centralise “planning gain” so that local authorities will no longer have the opportunity to negotiate with property developers to this end.

However, one of the things that strikes me about Ms Cooper – a very intelligent as well as hard working woman I am sure – is a certain naivity. Nor is she alone amongst her female colleagues in government in possessing this. The Secretary of State for the Culture, Media and Sport, Ms Tessa Jowell, is another embodiment of this quality : see “Gambling on Regeneration and the Casino Economy” at www.janetmackinnon.blogspot.com under “Regeneration”. Perhaps, therefore, naivity is an essential quality for senior ministerial office under New Labour. Sorry folks, but I think that question needs to be asked !

The fact is that we come back to the issue of “the economy, stupid”. Problems associated with the UK housing market, and particularly that of England, are symptomatic of wider economic dysfunction, itself largely (although not entirely) a consequence of Treasury policies under the chancellorship of Gordon “Stalin” Brown and his “representative on earth”, Ed Balls. Of these problems, the biggest (because of its downside in the form of rising property prices) of all is that the UK housing market, particularly in certain parts of the country, has become a key part of the global investment economy, and, perhaps, the main focus for UK domestic investors . For various reasons, there is alot of money around just now and the UK property market is one of the most attractive destinations for this : the main reason why the UK is currently the world’s number one location for inward investment.

So my advice to Housing and Planning Minister, Ms Yvette Cooper, if she really wants to do something for the people in housing need in this country (who most certainly do exist) is to have a word with her husband, and his boss, about wider UK economic policy.

My own recommendation to Ms Cooper, and Messrs Balls and Brown, for what its worth, is that some major restructuring of the UK housing market is required, as part of a wider shift to economic and environmental sustainability. As with other sectors of the economy that have undergone such restructuring, this will not be painless for politicians or punters. However, as I’m sure Shelter, and many other organisations would agree, the present situation isn’t so good for many people, even if they aren’t aware of this yet.

A Stalinist Tendency in British Government ?

The Financial Times newspaper today says of the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer :

“Gordon Brown has exhibited a ‘Stalinist ruthlessness’ in government, belittling his cabinet colleagues whom the Treasury treats with ‘more or less complete contempt’, according to the man who was Britain’s top civil servant until 2005. “

The theme of a “Stalinist Tendency” in the government of Tony Blair has been taken up by a number of commentators in the UK.  Personally, I think it is a theme which merits some metaphorical treatment, and, therefore, my earlier blogs have given it some !

Please see www.janetmackinnon.blogspot.com (Category : E-Pantomime/Blog title : Carry on Communities) and www.janetrocco.blogspot.com (Category : Satyre/Blog title : The Court of the Red Tar).

Any typological errors should be put down to the Gremlins which have brought about the relocation of my blog (See my Welcome) and are currently awaiting correction !

Welcome to the Witch of Worcester’s Blog

The Witch of Worcester (aka Janet Mackinnon) has relocated for an as yet undetermined period from her blog at www.janetmackinnon.blogspot.co.uk (and other Google blogspots) due to technical and, possibly, “censorship” problems (Gremlins anyway !). In the meantime, her new WordPress blog will cover the following :

• Business/Management
• Environment/Planning
• Government/Politics
• Literature/Culture
• New Paradgm/Health
• Regeneration/Economy

Warning ! The Witch sometimes has a wicked sense of humour. People of an overly straight disposition (New Labour types, for instance) please take note.